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RWC 2011 – opening night

Batucada performing in the Fanzone

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It seems like we’ve been counting down the days for ever, but the Rugby World Cup 2011 is finally here! Wellington Batucada has been invited by the City Council to do a series of performances for the World Cup celebrations, and our first gig was in the Fanzone on opening night.

We were scheduled to do our thing after the Wellington Ukelele Orchestra (yay!) and by the time it was our turn to play the Fanzone was already pretty jam-packed. The initial plan was to parade around the zone keeping everyone entertained, but with crowds 10-deep on either side of us it was all we could do to make our way slowly into the centre of the Fanzone – at which point we were pretty much hemmed in and couldn’t go anywhere! Not to worry – we stayed where we were, and our drummers and dancers entertained the very enthusiastic crowd for half an hour, showcasing a bunch of our new samba breaks that we’ve been working on in the run-up to the World Cup.

Tim G set us a killer pace on our first piece, Merengue, which is hard enough to play at the best of times, but at top speed and from a standing start it was quite a challenge.